Almost Lover
by WeasleyWeakness
Summary: Sometimes things don't turn out how you hoped they would... but sometimes that's also for the best.


**I wrote this back in April because Staysa made me. She gave me a song to base a one-shot off of. A challenge of sorts. This is the result.**

**_Thank you, Sweet Little Bullet for cleaning this up enough for postage. :)_**

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It was on top of a small rounded pile of dirt in his backyard when we were seven.

The moment I realized I loved Jasper Hale.

We had set up a mini town on and around the pile. There were plastic trucks and matchbox cars. Little green army men, a half of a Barbie doll, and a plethora of action figures and animal figurines scattered about.

The pile was molded and dug in and we had worked so hard to make it like that. It was strewn with holes, raised bumps molded from our little hands, rocks, and old discarded caps-from the bottles of beer our fathers drank-that didn't make it in the old Folgers coffee can when they were flicked across the porch.

We made an entire little civilization. It was our own little town and we were the Mayors, Governors, Presidents, and Gods of it compacted into two over imaginative and muddy little bodies.

After spending hours setting everything up just right, the town, or Mud City as we had called it, would experience a great tragedy; a flood of biblical proportions.

Which in reality, was just us turning on the hose at the top and watching it wash away everything that we had built and setup, into a colossal watery mess at the base of the mud pile.

He said, "Ya know? It's cool after it rains. When everything's all wet and stuff from the rain and that gross dew stuff, but everything is clean. It's all fresh and clean and brand new. And it smells nicer too. 'Specially in the Summer."

I nodded excitedly and agreed with wide eyes and a smile. He was perfection in cargo shorts and slip-on sneakers.

We used a big Tonka truck to perform a perilous search and rescue until everyone was saved... or his father yelled at us to quit using up all the well-water. With no water, the game had lost its appeal. But he hadn't, not to me.

We always got along in our youth. The only time we ever fought before the age of fourteen was in the winter when I was five and a half. There had been a blizzard. There was two and a half feet of snow on the ground and we were out playing in the snow banks at the end of the dead end road. The plows had spent hours pushing all the snow from my street into giant piles that ended up being six feet deep. This was huge. Or at least to us.

Jasper lived through the woods and couldn't walk sufficiently with his still too-short legs. His dad pulled him over on a sled before going inside to join my father for some brandy by the fireplace and the hockey game. Jasper's mom was in Florida visiting her mother and mine was food-shopping. The stores were always empty after a snow.

I was clad in my soaking wet winter clothes. My gray Velcro rubber and nylon boots, a magenta jacket, light blue overall snow pants, red gloves, and a teal hat with a pom-pom on top. Yes, I was horribly unmatched. But as my mother would always point out: I was warm.

Down behind the snow banks was a cluster of trees. And hanging from those heavy snow covered trees were thick icicles. We were having races up the bank to see who could reach the top and slide down first. He had already beaten me a handful of times and I wanted my shot. We were gasping for air and giggling when I playfully shoved him back where he fell into a tree. His small collision had been just enough of a jostle to disturb the branches holding the large icicles.

An icicle fell down and struck Jasper on the top of his head. He immediately started crying angry tears of shock and pain. Naturally, in his anger, he wanted to push me down too. I began my get away as fast as I could. Running home where it was warm and dry and where I knew my dad would be sitting, ready to be my knight in shining armor. But try as I might, my little legs just weren't fast enough and he caught up to my running. I did a face plant and he decided it would be smart to use his teeth to bite me since my leg was the closest thing he could grasp.

Like the icicle had made him bleed, his teeth pinched right through my snow pants and made me bleed too. An eye for an eye.

We both ended up home minutes later, crying, exhausted messes, where our father's put us down for naps in our respective beds.

When I was thirteen, Jasper started seeing girls. And by this I mean he realized they were cute and without cooties. Every day after school I'd listen to him talk about a different girl that had talked to him that day while we munched on our afternoon snacks. I'd grunt my responses and 'yes' him to death nodding all the while. I took it like a champ. I just wanted Jasper to notice me that way.

He took Mallory Young to the eighth grade spring-fling. I went and saw them take pictures together beforehand, but I didn't go to the dance. I didn't know how to dance nor did I have anyone to go with.

Our high school years were much of the same way. He flirted and dated and either did the burning or he got burned, bad. And when his heart was broken, time and time again, I was always there, waiting and willing, to pick up the pieces. When he was so sad that he couldn't sleep or eat, I took him to the Dairy Hut for burgers and shakes; and after he had wasted two years of his life following around Kerri-Ann McCall like a lost puppy in hopes that she'd take him seriously and be his girlfriend, only to find out that she had been sleeping with his closest guy friend-and half of the football team- I was there. I let him talk it out. I made him food and root beer floats. I always listened. I always offered my shoulder to cry on. But kept my feelings to myself.

After Kerri, there was Katie. She was even more stupid. And lucky me, I even got to listen to his comparison of her breasts. Post and pre silicone implants. Just what a girl wants to hear.

I skipped Junior Prom because I didn't want to go alone. But I went to Senior Prom with friends. Jasper approached me and told me I looked nice. It meant the world to me. Other girls would have been offended of only receiving the word "nice" for a compliment, but I was ecstatic. It was one of the greatest things ever said to me.

Three weeks after we graduated he dragged me to a party at West Beach. There were campfires and bottles of alcohol and tons of people. It was fun until the entire world shifted. Jasper laid eyes on his next love. Her name was Alice.

Alice really was a saint. She was one of the most genuine and caring people I had ever met. She complimented him. She brought him to life. He was happy. She was happy. They'd been together- no inseparable, since that warm night at the beach. That was four years ago this summer. They were engaged now. I was one of the bridesmaids.

Seeing Alice and Jasper together I knew that I no longer wanted him like I had thought I did for so long. I still loved him, and probably always would, but I realized that it would never have been to the pure intensity on either of our parts like what he and Alice shared. I would never take that away from him or anyone. My sacrificing heart and I watched their love grow with happiness. I was content with my life, happy that my best friend had finally found a serious relationship and just plain good person for him, and I readied myself to begin my adult life, without him.

After a year of Jasper and her dating, Alice introduced me to her older brother. He was seven years my senior and in his last leg of medical school. His name was Edward and he was a beautiful person inside and out, just like her. She successfully fixed us up and we fell into a quick and comfortable romance. I still have three years of school left while he had one and some interning. We were both ready to settle down and just be. Things were easy and I felt complete for the first time in my life. Edward kept me in the light, front and center. I was no longer in the background or acting as a support system.

Edward had gotten up to get us another glass of champagne and I watched as Jasper and Alice effortlessly twirled around the tiny dance floor. I smiled as I watched them so blissfully happy and unaware of anyone and everything around them. You wouldn't even know they knew this party was for their own engagement. Jasper stopped and used his left arm to make Alice spin in tiny graceful circles before bringing her back against his body and securing her other wrist in his right hand. They continued to sway back and forth in silence to the light music as I watched on.

Moments passed and the music began to change pace. Jasper looked up at me and smiled and slowly made his way to me. He grinned and held his right hand out and took my hand in his. Holding Alice in his left he began spinning the two of us like we were toy puppets. The three of us laughed and danced like idiots until the beginning of the next song where my Edward came and claimed me. The four of us rocked to the music side by side and with my head against Edward's chest I peered to the engaged couple next to me.

Jasper was never an almost for me. I realized this now and I'd come to terms with it. I thought that it was what I wanted. I thought I was heartbroken from his constant obliviousness. I just hadn't met my other half yet and he seemed to know I wasn't his all along. We were friends and would only ever be just that, best friends.

"It's better to have loved and lost, then to have never loved at all," held no truth with me. I had loved but I never lost.


End file.
